34 (129).
11 XII [1902. Paris].

Yesterday I sent off an article*), I don't know if it will make it into this issue of the journal. Now I'm sending a note regarding no. 13 of *Revolutionary Russia*²). It seems to me that an appeal to the "Southern Revolutionary Union" is necessary (as far as I know, it consists partly of members of the Odessa Southern Group, partly of Nikolaev social-democrats): we must f o r c e  our practical workers to take part in the struggle against the socialist-revolutionaries.

I'll write a note about the Bundists.³)

Chernov is coming here in the next few days. He will be giving lectures here. The proposal to invite you, apparently, w i l l  n o t  be accepted under the pretext of your "illegality," but in fact out of unwillingness to admit Marxists.⁴) I strongly support Krokhmál's plan to proceed as follows in this case: the local group will organize a series (3-4) of your lectures, and the announcement will state that this is a lecturer who, for political reasons, was not permitted to teach at the "free" school, and the group will at the same time invite all those who for the same reasons fall into the category of "refuses⁵)" to turn to it. This demonstration is necessary precisely because the Higher School is taking an openly hostile position toward us by inviting Chernov and Kachoróvsky⁶). All its professors are partisans of *Liberation*.

The history with the revival of "Zurich sedition" infuriates me. It's the devil knows what. A letter I read from Bobrovsky⁷) to Krokhmál, to whom they turned for assistance (they asked the same of Baumann and Gal'perin), shows that Boris Nikolaevich — Noskov (he is not named, but they could have no other information) is doing everything to discredit our Russian affairs and is demoralizing people. I convinced Krokhmál to write them with advice not to boil over for nothing. The incident with Dobrovolsky's telegram⁸) reminds me of the story with the cook [Shchekoldín]. We with Vasíly—[E. M. Aleksandrova]—think that he must be f o r c e d  to come to London or here (where he could come to an understanding with Vasíly—[E. M. Aleksandrova]). I am convinced that Krokhmál, understanding full well the absurdity of the Zurich plans, has nonetheless decided to use them to form for h i m s e l f  a little group with which he will simultaneously go to Russia. (He told me directly that he intended, before departing for Russia, which he is thinking about in general—"when it becomes necessary"—to go to Switzerland, come to an understanding with Vasíly—[E. M. Aleksandrova] and others, and lead them with him in order to assign each to a definite task). This passion of our best people to form for themselves coteries of "their own" people is simply unseemly. Two people of any considerable seriousness cannot live side by side! After all, only by this incompatibility—that is, by Boris Nikolaevich Noskov's unwillingness to get along with Pavel Andréevich⁹)—can his present game be explained... The news that Northern literature keeps lying on that side of the border depresses me completely. Apart from the fact that this testifies to the complete helplessness of the public (the matter is not difficult at all), here I see—in connection with information I obtained here—new proof that our Petersburg people t e n d e n t i o u s l y  d i s t o r t  in their letters here the true state of affairs. Here's what I learned from a r e l i a b l e  source: the "Committee of the Workers' Organization" with Vyshíbalo¹⁰) at its head not only openly left the union, but has already issued a proclamation in which it declared that in view of infringement of the statute by intellectuals, it is breaking with the "Iskra" Committee. Furthermore, it has issued (or is issuing) no. 16 of *Workers' Thought*. Rörikh (N. K. [Krupskaya] knows about him), whom Grazhdánin—Krasnúkha characterized as completely "one of ours," is working on eliminating the "schism" and is succeeding at it, and as a result of his efforts (so says the author of the letter) "the Iskra workers' circles are gradually joining the Committee of the Workers' Organization." That this seems to correspond to the truth is shown by the following words: Rörikh is an "Iskraite," but he censures the incorrectness of arrested Iskraites toward their opponents. It is clear what kind of "unification" could be spoken of here.

The Don Committee has entered into some sort of agreement with the "Union." The basis of the agreement—*Red Banner*¹¹) and "popular" literature.

I would advise y o u  to write a "convincing" letter to Klérov [Krzhizhanóvsky] to induce him as soon as possible to move out of his out-of-the-way place and either go into an illegal position or, in any case, abandon work for wages and live on the organization's means. We have no people capable of directing the work, and—in view of various undesirable tendencies manifested b y  a l m o s t  e v e r y o n e  (unfortunately, one cannot exclude even Pavel Andréevich—P. A. Krasnóv—to whom I fully trusted, and who, as I have reason to think, is also conducting some sort of "separate" policy), by almost all "our" people—it is e x t r e m e l y  n e c e s s a r y  t h a t  K l é r y  [G. M. and Z. P. Krzhizhanóvsky] become f a c t u a l l y  a t  t h e  c e n t e r .  Vasíly [E. M. Aleksandrova] will be inclining them to this, but direct pressure from our side is also important. In a month they have access—legal—to all cities except the capitals. Consequently, if we completely abandon concerns about earning a living, they can settle where it will be necessary. Besides all other qualities, Klérov [G. M. Krzhizhanóvsky] has one—as a man, he is better suited than others to become a "personal center" linking all these prickly "super-individualities." We must hurry, while the present disarray has not turned into "Russian sedition."

On the Congress I will not argue further, although I am not convinced by your arguments. Here the matter is not in a difference of viewpoints, but only in a different assessment of the given situation. I look less optimistically, Vasíly [E. M. Aleksandrova]—as well. But he built his plans conditionally, depending on the results of his trip and what he finds on the spot. Then, that is, it will be seen.

I shake your hand.

*) "Autumn Summation" in no. 30 of *Iskra*.

²) The article "How Social-Democrats 'Turn' Toward Populism" in no. 30 of *Iskra*.

³) Probably the article "The New 'Unprecedented' Act of Iskra." See note 12 to letter 30.

⁴) Martov is referring to the invitation to V. I. Lenin to give a series of lectures on the agrarian question at the "Higher Russian School of Social Sciences," organized by Prof. M. M. Kovalévsky, Yu. S. Gambaróv, and others in Paris. After a prolonged struggle between students and professors of the "School," Lenin's lectures nonetheless took place. See the following letters from Martov nos. 35, 38.

⁵) Refuses—rejected ones.

⁶) Kachoróvsky, a Populist, statistician and economist, author of a well-known work on the Russian commune.

⁷) Apparently Bobróvsky, Vladímir Semyónovich, one of the oldest Russian social-democrats, an Iskraite, and later a Bolshevik and communist, who escaped from the Kiev prison in August 1902. Died in 1923.

⁸) What the incident with Dolívo-Dobrovolski consisted of could not be clarified.

⁹) Pavel Andréevich, according to N. K. Krupskaya, was the name given to Pyótr Ananévich Krasnóv.

¹⁰) Vyshíbalo - Tokárev—an "economist," member of the "Petition[sburg] Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class." Here we are speaking of that declaration which was issued by the economists in the name of the "Committee of the Workers' Organization" as a protest against the agreement concluded in July 1902 between the Petersburg Iskra Committee and the "Workers' Organization." Regarding this agreement, the Petersburg Committee issued a proclamation in which it was reported that the organized workers of Petersburg spoke out against "economism" and "democratism" and were joining "Iskra." In October, under the influence of Tokárev, the "Committee of the Workers' Organization" issued a leaflet declaring that henceforth the guiding organ of the "Petersburg Union of Struggle" was the "Committee of the Workers' Organization." On the schism in the Petersburg organization see the note in no. 30 of *Iskra* entitled "The Petersburg Schism."

¹¹) *Red Banner*—a continuation of *Workers' Cause*, published from November 1902 to January 1903 by the "Union of Russian Social-Democrats Abroad." Three issues in all were published.